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The first full trailer for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim proved something of a talking point today. Thus, the usually scattered nodes of the RPS Hivemind elected to watch these two and a half minutes of in-game dragon-bothering footage together, and see what thoughts fell from our raddled brains as it happened. Opinions proved a little divided, it transpired… Some were excited! Some were merely intrigued! Some were convinced there was little to be excited about! Here’s how it happened, chronologically. More or less.
You should have the trailer running as you read this, for maximum synchronization. Here it is again:

Alec: I might not be 18. Am I 18?Jim: 18! That means it will have rude bits.Alec: Snow! And bones!Jim: Oh is that the rating for the trailer itself?Quinns: These drums make me think the Morrowind theme is about to kick inAlec: Wait, what went before was just a delaying tactic for this dragon invasion, claims Max? So everything we did in Oblivion was a waste? Well, thanks.John: Are there any younger scrolls?Jim: Running!Alec: Hmm, so dragons are made out of rock?John: Oh, I played this in 2009. Dragon Age, right?Alec: Max von Sydow sure knows how to say ‘fire’Quinns: If that headbob isn’t in the game I’m going to be upset. That is some powerful headbob.Alec: Hang on, horn-head there is the hero, and has a name? So we’re playing as a specific guy this time around? It really is like Dragon Age. Well, Dragon Age 2.Jim: One day there will be a fantasy epic that uses jazz as its soundtrack.Alec: BIG MUSIC. BIG. This is very exciting.Jim: He’s a handsome fella.Quinns: It is a man against a dragon! He has no chance
BUT
He’s not on fire!

Alec: Some sort of wood-based giant there, I thinkQuinns: I saw Kieron shout like that once. But that was after he’d just missed last orders.Alec: That spider has testicles on its faceJim: It’s all about the architecture for me, I have to say. Big rock outcroppings make me hot.Quinns: So much stabbingJohn: I hate people who kill dragons. So I hate this game.Jim: Yeah, Dragons are okay by me.Alec: What if I don’t want that hat with the horns on? Is that okay?Quinns: That is a very stupid dragon, right there.

[Trailer ends]

John: Well, it sort of didn’t look like anything.Jim: Ooh, the panning over terrain is almost as good as it is in Guild Wars 2 trailer.Alec: It has been a good day for panning

Jim: It looks like Oblivion 3 to meQuinns: The second dragon just over the hill does sort of imply that they’ll be as prevalent as cliff racers.Alec: I hope we get to see a dragon terrorising a village. I’m guessing they’ll be like the demon lord guys in Oblivion, and become uber-prevalent in the late gameJim: I wonder how the dragons will work in an open landscape. Will you spot one up and mountain and chase after it?Alec: Wait for me!Jim: *dragon flies off.* Oh.Alec: *uselessly fires arrows after it*

Jim: My hope is that the world at large in Skyrim will be a bit more alive that Oblivion. There was some nice random stuff in Oblivion, but it never really felt like it worked.John: Someone explain to me why that should have made me excited?Alec: It is ludicrously epic, essentially. I don’t mind a bit of ludicrous epicness. And I do like the idea of shouting at dragons. This is a videogame I must play.Jim: The music, John.John: Great.Jim: That was the soundtrack for excitement.John: It sounded like Game With Dragons In It music to me. Some fairly bog-standard German-esque choral music. Weeeeeeee.Alec: I admit, I wonder if I’d be quite as excited if the music was different.Quinns: Let me arrange an experiment to see precisely how excited you’d be if the music was different. Watch this.Alec: Oh my God, it actually becomes more exciting.

He’s right! More to come on Skyrim over the following months, we don’t doubt.

Very, very, very, very, very, very, very, VERY NSFW.
Seriously, do not click the following link unless you are (Pegi) 18, of healthy and well-composed mind, and okay with drawings of naughty things on the internet.
Also don’t click this link if you don’t want to have horrible nightmares tonight.
Have I mentioned NSFW?

Thank you Daniel. It’s been a some time since the internet offered me perverted sexual comedy that made me laugh out loud. (I used to be a fan of Sexy Losers/The Thin H Line which provoked a similar reaction.)

Correct me if I’m wrong, but in the lore of the Elder Scrolls series, aren’t dragons supposed to be utterly incredibly rare? So much so that many believe them to be extinct? I’ll have a sad if they’re as prevalent as Cliff Racers.

Yes, they are incredibly rare. The lore of the series practically has all four games before Skyrim hyping the arrival of dragons. The “prophecy” of the Elder Scrolls, if you follow the events, is slowly filled in each game, culminating with the arrival of the dragons in ESV.

With that said, I doubt you’ll encounter one every twenty minutes. After all, they’re each supposed to have a unique dragon shout, meaning they’ll be rare and probably scripted in appearance.

They apparently like to fly straight at people holding sharp pointy things that would be of no use if the dragon sensibly kept it’s distance. Presumably they’re at the brink of extinction due to stupidity or something.

Same as with every game with dragons…
But I wonder what’ll make them so unique, as opposed to just being airborne monsters. At least they seem to have a tongue… Nothing beats a talking dragon (seriously).

Dragons are rare, but no one in the Lore has ever known the why of it really. A mystery and a half.
It hasn’t beenlike the disappearence of the Dwarves/Dwemer/Deep Elves which has been explored quite deeply.

Tiber Septim/Talos used a few to help him forge his Empire, you kill one them as the main character in TES:Redguard.

I was hoping the man was gona swan dive off that cliff but no! He stopped. It looks ok, in the sense that i have no idea what’s actually in the game other than epic music and dragons. And yeah, a nice chunk of DX:HR will fill my RPGfps hole for a while i think.

It looks very much like Bliv.
Clearly it was likely to, being another Elder Scrolls game, but it really, really looks like Oblivion. The plantlife still looks like it’s been drawn with coloured pencils and stuck into the ground (really well drawn, don’t get me wrong, but drawn nonetheless).

Morrowind had mushroom palaces, mudhuts, a giant hollowed out crab, steampunk dwarf contaptions, and the capital city was a combination of the Forbidden City of Peking and Venice. Are you really saying that nine years later, we cannot manage to shake generic western fantasy?

That’s the problem right there, Bhazor. It’s not supposed to be a sequel to Oblivion. It’s supposed to be the next game in the Elder Scrolls series. Compare / contrast: Arena, Daggerfall, Morrowind, Oblivion, and now this.

This just looks like a sequel to Oblivion. I’ve already played Oblivion, to death. I’ve played Shivering Isles, all the mods I could get my hands on, and I’ve played Nehrim through. Now I want a new Elder Scrolls game to play, but this just looks like Oblivion. Again.

So what about it looks like Oblivion? Nobody seems to be specifying anything.

The locations are much more diverse, the animation is vastly improved (given how poor it’s been in past Bethesda games, that’s a boon), and the dragon-based storyline actually lends a sense of scope to the game and your actions. Oblivion was famous for people ignoring the main quest at all costs, due to how insipid it was.

But this looks like Oblivion because we’re cynical Internet people. Truly, a repulsive brand of pessimism.

@supacoo – Well, maybe it’s because it isn’t such a jump as Morrowind to Oblivion was. There were big changes in graphics and combat between them (and physics) so in that way it’s going to feel a bit similar to Oblivion because there isn’t any of that fancy stuff coming in. The magic looks like Oblivion, the combat looks kinda like Oblivion but with cool finishing animations (which is good), and I think the landscapes do have kind of an Oblivion vibe to them. I agree that the locations look far more interesting than Oblivion (except for that dungeon, but we didn’t see much of it) but the real test will be how much they can keep that up in the whole world. And it’s a bit early to talk about plot I think, I mean worst case scenario, dragons are like oblivion gates. That’s super worst case. Of course there might be a touch of cynicism, but I’m not seeing enormous differences from Oblivion.

Morrowind -> Oblivion is absolutely a visual regression. When you have both modded graphically to the limit of what your computer can do (as I have) ultimately coolness and variety win out on generic stuff with way too much bloom.

For me it’s because this is, like Oblivion, generic-human-based-fantasy-land yet again. To be honest, that isn’t a surprise that’s been sprung on me by this trailer – as soon as I heard the name ‘Skyrim’ I groaned.
What happened to the imagination and creativity present in Morrowind? Why couldn’t they set it somewhere new, and alien, such as the Black Isle or Elswheyr?
You can’t tell anything about the gameplay from a trailer really, so it’s simply the visual style that’s preventing me from getting excited about it at the moment (not the quality, which thankfully does look like an improvement on Oblivion, yet still looks suspiciously like the Gamebryo engine enhanced despite their claims to the contrary).

That and the fact that so many other promising games have been a disappointment recently, so I’m feeling pretty jaded about the AAA games industry as a whole.

I’d be real happy if, every time you slew a dragon, Mclusky’s The Difference Between Me and You Is That I’m Not On Fire plays in its entirety. No skipping/changing music levels in the options menu/eye contact.

Bethesda is a game company that seems to polarize opinion strongly, like Nintendo. People come out raving about it, or they come out decrying it as the most worthless, mundane thing to have ever been made, completely devoid of value.

Regardless, the trailer looked awesome to me. A touch of Morrowind’s feel to it, I felt. Or so I’m hoping.

I don’t know what you people are complaining about. If nothing else, we have an awesome trailer to watch.

To tell the truth, if this just ends up being Oblivion with improved graphics and combat and a different setting, that works for me. My only real complaint about Oblivion was that it was pretty bland, and it looks like they’re working hard to avoid that with Skyrim. I’m even more excited now.

As for the trailer, besides the occasional shot of someone walking, landscape pans and stabbing people, there’s precious little footage of the gameplay that makes up the most interesting parts of Oblivion/Morrowind/Fallout 3/Bethesda Open-World games for me.

Like multi-layered quests that have so much “extra” optional material to comb through, or collecting books and the like. Doesn’t make for an epic trailer, but it would certainly appeal more to me.

Also, it can’t be possible that horned-helmet man is you. Playing a highly specific, voiced person seems anathema to almost everything they’ve done lately.

I’m sure we’ll get some of that in the now-inevitable gameplay videos.

As for the player character, I think that is him, in a default state. Mass Effect had its default Shepard, Dragon Age had the same guy in all the trailers–they’ll use a specific character to advertise the game, but I’m sure they still have the ludicrously expansive customization options. Also, notice that his helmet cleverly hid most of his facial features, so it could be anyone under there.

I actually wouldn’t mind if they voice-acted the PC though. It would be nice to not just hear one-sided conversations.

I’m a bit sick of the boring cliche portrayal of dragons as the greatest evil things in the universe and you, the player, being the only hero able to defeat them, blablablabla etc. etc. etc. I hope this game will feature a story a little bit more interesting and far more unpredictable than that.

Does anyone remember the name of the game in which you could ride dragons and fly with them?

Have you tried Divinity II? Not only are Dragons in fact the good guys, you become one of them. You get to turn into your dragon form and fly about – sadly, it isn’t as open as I would have liked, and manages to be fairly constricted on where you can go.

You also can’t annoy someone, turn into a dragon and roast them. Pity.

Yes thanks, Drakan it was. I had great fun playing that game. It was not perfect of course, but riding the dragon was very cool. When I look at images of it now it looks very outdated, which should not be surprising, but imagine what it could be with a modern game engine.
I hope we get to ride dragons in Skyrim and do areal battles.

RPG are my first love and I barely care what a game looks like these days.
Just… have they created a decent levelling system yet?
Obliv is sitting on my shelf unplayed and Morrowind barely touched. These worlds I would love to enter but fuck me the level up system is unplayable.

Uh… if that’s all that’s stopping you, there are several mods for both that completely change how the levelling system works. Especially if that’s all that’s stopping you and you don’t care about graphics as such, give Morrowind another try, truly great game. For me game awards seemed to work like the Oscars: in the same way Martin Scorsese didn’t win an Oscar for Taxi Driver, Goodfellas or Mean Streets but then won one for The Departed; it feels to me that Oblivion got so much acclaim and critical attention on release because the press realised how far it had underrated Morrowind when it came out.

Although the hivemind is being a grumpy bunch of spoilsports (boo and hiss!), I thought the trailer looked awesome. Really entertaining, giving a glimpse into lots of different parts of the game. Not exactly sure what people were expecting from this first game footage trailer, reams of plot exposition or a detailed analysis of game mechanics or something? Also don’t understand how from 3 minutes of footage people have decided the combat is going to be rubbish. I remain hopeful nevertheless.

Really entertained me for its couple of minutes, and has made me look forward to it even more now. I also liked the way the old Morrowind theme was hinted to several times in the more ‘Nordic’ Skyrim music.

Lovely looking landscapes. I kind of dig the Norse stylings. Looks like it’s going to be beastly to run in terms of gpu though. Still it would be good to see some extended game play footage as well as some conversational stuff.

You think? The mountains are absolutely ridiculous, like a child’s idea of what mountains look like. At least they seem to have running water in this game though. It would be great to see a game with a landscape modelled on how landscapes actually form – plate tectonics, glaciers, streams and rivers, that sort of thing.

If I want reality (in all it’s drudgery) I just have to step outside. Personally with games I don’t mind things being overblown. Most concept art is completely overboard most of the time when you get down to it, but it makes for great environments.

Anyway, there are mountains, there’s weather – snow, rain. There would be glaciation, erosion by water. This stuff’s totally interesting and cool. Go to some high ground. There’s water everywhere, carving channels in the soil and rock, shaping the landscape. It’s beautiful and awesome and well understood and it would be nice if AAA games spent some of their tens of millions modelling it.

Urael: Yes, let’s punish this fantasy game for not being what you personally are looking for. That’s a highly reasonable way of judging things.

Fuck sake. Punish – what are you on about? I just happen to think that the mountain landscapes look a bit ridiculous. I’m not trying to hurt anyone.

Kadayi: If I want reality (in all it’s drudgery) I just have to step outside. Personally with games I don’t mind things being overblown. Most concept art is completely overboard most of the time when you get down to it, but it makes for great environments.

Jesus. Go and climb some hills. Computer games don’t come close to competing.

On an unrelated note – you played a specific character in Morrowind too. You were the Nerevarine, the one who would heal the Red Blight or whatever it was, by slaying Dagoth Ur. Of course this didn’t have any bearing on what race, gender, profession, ethics, skillset you used…

“Hang on, horn-head there is the hero, and has a name? So we’re playing as a specific guy this time around?”

I think he has a name, and is a specific guy, in the sense that you were a specific guy and had a name (Nerevarine) in Morrowind. Which is to say, you’re just some dude of your own design until you find out you were destined and prophesied to be some particular vaguely messianic figure. Bethesda has specified that Dovaahkin just means “Dragon Born” in their made up dragon language, just as Nerevarine probably meant “One Who Hates Cliff Racers” in their made up Dark Elf language.

I would be very surprised if, after all this time of Bethesda putting crazy broad character creation in their games, you are pigeonholed into being a horn-helmed barbarian that automatically looks just like the guy in the trailer and who was named Dovaahkin by his mum.

“Alec: Hang on, horn-head there is the hero, and has a name? So we’re playing as a specific guy this time around? It really is like Dragon Age. Well, Dragon Age 2.”

I really hope that’s not the case. After playing SUPER STRONG MANLY MAN in The Witcher and inexplicably-stupid-and-grumpy man in Risen, I’m ready to role play my own character, thanks. I thought the ability to make and play a unique character was one of the biggest strengths of DAO. It makes me sad that CRPGs, once the only reliable way to actually play female (gasp) leads in video games, are beginning to devolve into a samey toughman protagonist mold.

What I like about this is that, although it is generic, perhaps with not much content in terms of storytelling etc., it is at least competent. The Dragon Age games exude fanfiction vibes and cheap tricks wanting to catch my eye…

Gosh, John. For someone who’s usually known as ‘the enthusiastic one’, you sure are being a grumpy killjoy. I think this looks rather delightful, even though I’m willing to reserve final judgement until I get some sort of trusted review.

This trailer makes me want to listen to fingathing (ogre from superhero music). I’m getting a strong Conan vibe, which is good because Conan is both awesome and the manliest of men who has ever (fictionally) lived. He has sex with a witch, who then turns into a comet. I therefore expect Skyrim to include witch sex.

I haven’t read the comments yet, so idk if anyone addressed this. The “name” is a title, kind of like Nerevarine in Morrowind. You make a character of any of the usual Elder Scrolls races, and he is the Dovakiin.
I couldn’t possibly be more excited for this. From everything I read here: link to gameinformer.com it’ll be more like Morrowind than Oblivion.
Who doesn’t want to shout at dragons?

yeah, you get so called dragon shouts killing dragons (or some special quests/runes) and a la may payne’ish SLOW-MO will be IN GAME!
at the moment now:)
we all know how oblivion looked in 2005 demos and when they got xbox console (6 months prior to game release) and had to drop shitload of coolness :P

I don’t know why everyone is so down on this. I love the trailer for two reasons. The first is the all-around goodness provided by the music and cinematography. This of course doesn’t give one reason to be interested in the game, but makes it fun to watch regardless. The second, bigger reason, is that the gameplay shown actually looks really good to me.

I’ve always been pretty underwhelmed by Bethesda’s games, but this looks like they’ve really been paying attention to improving in the areas they’ve traditionally been weak in. The animations, in particular, look fantastic. I know it sounds kind of shallow, but it can make the world feel much more real.

Basically, this trailer excites me because it doesn’t look like Oblivion at all, or like Morrowind, or like Fallout 3. It looks like it could be the first Bethesda game that I could love.

The evil Dragon god Alduin that is the Big Bad of this game is the same deity as Akatosh. The Nords have a slightly different view of him then the Imperials.
Why did he save the world in Oblivion?
Because he didn’t want no good dirty Deadra destroying the world before him.
Also like all Elder Scrolls deities he is a massive misanthropic asshole.

I like this twist. The god of the Empire, the one who’s blessing was given by the Amulet of Kings and whose avatar Martin Septim turned into to defeat Mehrunes Dagon, is now the bad guy.
It makes sense that the Nords would consider the patron god of the Empire evil. I wonder if there’ll be more to it than meets the eye.

To gloss over the lore, the Nords have always considered him evil, and the reason he’s a god in Tamriel is that that saint Alessia, the person who freed the humans from the Aylied domination, needed to keep the religion system they had all be trained to believe in for several centuries or she’d lose control, at least religiously.

The shouting is a new mechanic. It’s a sort of dragon-magic, that any class can use, not just mages. It’s apparently very powerful. Thing is, it’s hard to come by.

You have to climb a mountain, where this sect of people who can use the power live. They are the last people in the world who know its secret. Only certain people are even capable of learning it. The old emperors could use it once, but it was forgotten. Also, the line of Septim emperors died out in Oblivion, the new ones aren’t related and can’t.

You gain the ability to use shouts from killing dragons. (So there aren’t dozens or hundreds of dragons around, just a few.) Each shout is made up of three words in the dragon language. You can find these words as runes written upon walls in ruins and suchlike. So there’s a reward for exploring. It’s like a collection mechanic. You can learn more shouts, and make the ones you know more powerful by finding the runes and putting the words together in phrases.

They should make an RPG where you have to seduce the dragons and go on quests to kill bar wenches.

I’m fine with killing dragons, I mean they are basically just massive crocodiles right? Sort of. Why is it a shame to kill monsters? You don’t hear people complaining that there are too many games where you have to kill giant demon overlords. Just cos giant demon overlords aren’t as cuddly looking as dragons I guess. I suspect there was some fantasy novel I didn’t read that set up dragons as lovable noble beasts.

Fighting dragons is one of the highlights of these sorts of game for me, they are so iconic, although these particular ones look a bit small to be really memorable.

Seriously, get a grip. Being a bit sceptical as to the quality of Skyrim is not irrational – Oblivion is a bit meh, after all – and it’s not obsessive hate. This is a forum for discussion. We’re allowed an opinion, even if that opinion is that I’m not expecting much of this game after the letdown that was Oblivion, and the trailer looks like generic fantasy pish.

You’re exactly what I’m talking about – either you’re a troll, in which case, please can you stop wasting everyone’s time, or you’re just a little bit obsessive compulsive and weird. People like and dislike different things to you. Different strokes and all that.

Grape Flavor tweeted:
@alantwelve: Uh, yes, it is irrational. Double standards are irrational, and that’s what i’m seeing applied to this game. In spades.

The nitpicks about the graphics are ridiculous, people are piling onto every little thing that isn’t 100.00% photorealistic. While giving countless games with worse, more unrealistic graphics a total pass. Also hearing “Generic!” over and over. Fantasy is a genre. Swords, magic, dragons are pretty much staples. While I can understand if one hates the genre as a whole, the TES universe is definitely not any more generic most any other fantasy, unless you are ignorant (unaware of the rich TES lore), or flat out delusional (i.e. you just want to hate). RPS does not apply these criticisms to other similar games, either. Not every game with swords and epic music gets relentlessly mocked for having such. Just Skyrim.

I can respect if people played the game and didn’t like it. I don’t respect when people decide the game is trash as soon as it is announced, and then flounder about for the most shallow, hypocritical, and idiotic justifications for their pre-formed opinion.

So you didn’t like Oblivion. Fine. I thought it was superb once you modded it a bit. Most people and critics agree with me. Most people agree that Bethesda’s games, in general, have been superb. So this snark frenzy is at the very least, aberrant to the general consensus and evidence. And yeah, you could say most people are stupid or whatever, but then don’t act shocked when people who enjoyed the game get offended.

Oh and, saying “‘I’m not biased/irrational/hating, BUT,” and then proceeding to say something completely biased and hypocritical doesn’t get you off the hook. It doesn’t work that way. link to encyclopediadramatica.com

Everyone’s entitled to their opinion, sure, but there are immature opinions and there are valid ones. What I’m seeing is people forming a conclusion FIRST and then desperately scavenging about for evidence to support it. If they can’t find any, they fabricate it. I live in the United States, this is the standard operational procedure with Americans and politics. I’ve witnessed it millions of times and I know it when I see it.

It does bother me when a quality developer comes up with a promising game, and people shit all over it automatically without even giving it a chance. That I allow it to bother me probably does mean I am obsessive compulsive and weird.

I’m tired of debating this, I should really just skip all Skyrim threads.

I’m with Grape Flavour on this one – don’t give up, mate!
Since coverage of this game started we’ve seen a predominance of snark, criticism, “meh” and, as he says, a colossal amount of double-standards, and not just from the commenters. I mean seriously: “Elder Troll”?? John out of character. Jim unmoved until he bangs a generic rock track over the top of it (which is a touch off considering the amount he’s waxed lyrical in these pages on the beauty of EVE, the dullest experience I think I’ve played on a PC) Alec and Quinns poking fun like poor copies of the robots from MST3K…I’m all for a bit of fun but this is happening consistently and repeatedly to this game while similar gaming experiences (Dragon Age 2, etc) get much more balanced and favourable responses. While the last Skyrim thread may have seen people making an attempt to lift the tone a bit (leading Quinns to step in when Grape tried to raise this issue last time – think you could defend this thread, Quinns?) and display some enthusiasm, it’s becoming depressingly clear that Skyrim is now shorthand for “put the boot in”.

Are we that far out of danger of people decrying our platform as dead that the most popular PC Gaming website can afford to comprehensively dump on a major series release from a major developer before it’s given itself a real chance to show its stuff?

No, I don’t think that was the best trailer – it was a decidedly amateur effort, actually – but that’s different from saying anything about the game which, let’s face it, we’ve hardly seen, even at this stage.